by: Chelsea Wojtowicz

At the beginning of October two of our designers, Chelsea Wojtowicz and Randy Verbeck, and one of our front end developers, Jason Chumney, attended An Event Apart in Austin, Texas. The following are their favorite takeaways from the conference.

1. The importance of content first, navigation second.
Meaning, the focus should be on content and getting the information to the user with fewer mouse clicks.

2. Some people will only view your website on a mobile device.
Is your mobile experience a good one? Some people will only view your site on a mobile device, therefore a mobile website should be seen as less of a luxury, and as more of a necessity.

3. Use SVGs instead of bitmap background images wherever possible.
SVGs (scalable vector graphics) are a better alternative to making graphics for high definition or retina screens. A logo in SVG format, for example, stays crisp looking no matter the resolution or zoom level. Check out The Net Impact for an example of this technique in use.

4. Style Tiles can be a more efficient way of showing initial concept to clients.
Much like an interior designer, you can show clients the colors, fonts and buttons before spending hours on pixel perfect layouts. http://styletil.es/

5. Use css preprocessing to speed up and organize your code.
It will make your CSS dry. It will make your code easier to maintain.

6. Progressive Enhancement.
Basic content and functionality should be accessible to all web browsers.
Styles are written to enhance the page as the user agents gain functionality.

To find out more about this conference series and purchase tickets to attend, visit An Event Apart